upgrade idea

[Blackfell]

As the title says I have an idea for an upgrade. I found a solar generator on a site I was looking at. My idea is to install the generator in the behind the passenger seat. The generator comes with the solar panels for it. I wanted to mount the panels under the roof rack on drawer sliders that lock into place. The panels would deploy forward above the sun roof.

I would love some feed back on the idea

 

[Arnezie]

Ok for what??

 

[ConstantFix]

We'll. the only real good purpose of installing a solar generator is if your going to be running a lot of 12v without the car running for extended periods of time. If your camping for a few days, It'd be great. Anything expedition related or over engineered has my two thumbs up.

 

[vanion2]

Since I love solar projects (being an electrical engineer I have done several including my RV's and a Navajo hogan lighting project) I have several questions that jump out:
How will you store energy for the night?
Or is it your intent to only use the generator during the day?
What is the wattage of the solar panels?
What do you plan on powering?
Does the "generator" convert the DC to AC? What is the gage of the wiring?

I am always leery of "packaged" solar components because they tend to be made of low quality parts that will leave you rather disappointed with the results. Small gage wiring, low quality panels (you want monocrystal panels for best efficiency), and without seeing the specs it sounds like your generator is just an inverter to convert the DC to AC (cheap inverters make for lots of energy loss and poor sine waves).

Your idea is a good one but I would need to see the actual product specs to be able to tell you if it's worth it.

 

[Blackfell]

It the goal zero - yeti 1250. I can't link the site as I'm mobile right now and don't have time. It's for exploration or camping

 

[SilverRidgeRunner1]

I know this sound crazy but a lot of guys who run ham radio's and talk on CB'S a lot like to head up high in the mountain peaks to talk on skip and they use Solar Generators to run there radio systems. From what I have gathered from them make sure u build a good platform with a suspension sys to prevent the panel from flexing under bumps and what not off road but are very handy for that purpose.

 

[Brilliant]

1650 for the panel option, base unit is like 1200. It weights over a hundred pounds too.

It'd be a lot cheaper to get a deep cycle battery and leave the TV at home.

Also note it takes 22hours to charge via solar.

The only positive I saw was in the review video on YouTube is they put it in a 3rd gen.

 

[Brique]

I had a similar imagining a little while back. I was thinking about putting panels on the roof then using some sort of regulator to make sure the trucks battery stays topped off. Paired with a dual battery setup, it could make for some cool camping trips. I have no expertise in electronics and therefore no idea about the feasibility of such a project, though.

 

[MStudt]

:worthless

 

[vanion2]

I had a similar imagining a little while back. I was thinking about putting panels on the roof then using some sort of regulator to make sure the trucks battery stays topped off. Paired with a dual battery setup, it could make for some cool camping trips. I have no expertise in electronics and therefore no idea about the feasibility of such a project, though.

That's pretty easy. Get a 100 W panel and a low current battery charge controller with a fuse on the + battery line from the controller and you are done. Shorter battery lines with thick gage wire and you can put the controller under the hood easily enough. The use at least 8 gage wires from the panel to the controller and usually you can top off your battery.in about half a day with direct sunlight.

I forgot to mention your truck battery is not a deep cell battery so you don't want to discharge more than 20%. You should invest in a 2nd deep cell which you should not discharge more than 50%. Anything more and you significantly reduce the life of your battery.

 

[vanion2]

It the goal zero - yeti 1250. I can't link the site as I'm mobile right now and don't have time. It's for exploration or camping

I just looked that up. My first though is "rip off" and here is why:
1. Each 30 W panel is $200 which is ridiculous. You can get a 100W monocrystal solar panel for $150 current prices. So you get 3x + the Wattage out of one panel at $50 cheaper for a quality panel. They force you to use their panel through a proprietary plug. Fail.
2. This isn't a generator at all. It's a deep cell AGM battery in a box with an inverter built in for $1300. You could build the same thing for about $700 with a high efficiency full sign wave inverter, quality battery, an insulated battery box, and a quality charge controller. Fail again.
3. 22 hours to charge off 240W of panels for one battery? That tells me they are depleting the battery more than 50%, using low quality panels and using small gage wires. Notice the warranty is only good for 6 months? That's because your battery will probably last 7 months before it is useless with their design. Super fail.

For the amount of money they want for this setup I could build a 200W system that would charge a single deep cell battery in about 6 hours of daylight with enough power left over to run a small load at the same time. Much like I am doing for my motor home right now. Panels with a 25 year warranty, batteries that will last at minimum 4 years with proper usage, and a system that you could easily add more panels to without having to "upgrade" every component as your power requirements grow.

The concept is nice but unless you just have money to burn and have no interest in learning how to do it right then I would pass. If you want to know more I can post some links of some very knowledgeable sites from people who actually live completely off grid and aren't trying to sell anything.

 

[Blackfell]

Since I love solar projects (being an electrical engineer I have done several including my RV's and a Navajo hogan lighting project) I have several questions that jump out:
How will you store energy for the night?
Or is it your intent to only use the generator during the day?
What is the wattage of the solar panels?
What do you plan on powering?
Does the "generator" convert the DC to AC? What is the gage of the wiring?

I am always leery of "packaged" solar components because they tend to be made of low quality parts that will leave you rather disappointed with the results. Small gage wiring, low quality panels (you want monocrystal panels for best efficiency), and without seeing the specs it sounds like your generator is just an inverter to convert the DC to AC (cheap inverters make for lots of energy loss and poor sine waves).

Your idea is a good one but I would need to see the actual product specs to be able to tell you if it's worth it.

If you could pm me and we could chat about a viable method to do it that would be awesome. I have also posted what brand it was.

 

[2014 Warthog]

That's pretty easy. Get a 100 W panel and a low current battery charge controller with a fuse on the + battery line from the controller and you are done. Shorter battery lines with thick gage wire and you can put the controller under the hood easily enough. The use at least 8 gage wires from the panel to the controller and usually you can top off your battery.in about half a day with direct sunlight.

I forgot to mention your truck battery is not a deep cell battery so you don't want to discharge more than 20%. You should invest in a 2nd deep cell which you should not discharge more than 50%. Anything more and you significantly reduce the life of your battery.

This.

Packaged kits are insanely expensive.

I've used 150 watt panels to recharge deep cycle car batteries during the day for use on my telescope at night. Even on a cloudy day 150 watt cell will completely recharge the battery in one day. In the sun it only takes about 4-5 hours and that's from 10 v back up to 12.6(full)

So yeah a 100 watt panel is about the right size to place on a roof rack, and a simple $30 charger will keep your battery topped off and stop charging when full. You can just go ahead and replace your normal car battery with a deep cycle one if you want, or carry/install a second one.

Upshot? $200 TOTAL for panel and charger that can recharge "dead" battery enough to start your car in just 2-3 hours and full in 5-6. You just need to mount/wire it. $400 if you buy a good deep cycle to go with it.

 

[Nunyabiz]

I think the Goal Zero 1250 is something like $1600 last time I checked.
It only has 2, 30W solar panels and runs to a 100ah AGM Lead acid battery.
A deep cycle lead acid battery you should only use at most 50% of its capacity IF you want it to last more than about 2 years. and should never discharge more than 80% max.

Pretty sure with those 2 panels it would take something like an average of 50-60 hours to fully charge it from say 80% discharge.
and keep in mind you are only going to get maybe at best 10 hours of charging per day and only about 5 hours of that at anything close to the rated W.
and even that is going to change drastically depending on where in the country you are located, what time of year it is, what the weather is like and how perfectly aligned you have the panels faced directly at the sun.

So you are talking DAYS to recharge it and its just a 100ah battery of which you should only use about 50-60ah of.

Depending on how much power you need and for how long you need it is what you need to figure out first.

Myself I would go with a LITHIUM battery, they recharge faster, weigh less, can safely be discharged as much as you like down to 15-20% with no ill effects, do not need to be charged to 100% full either.
In fact they are better off if you don't.
You just have to make absolutely certain that you do NOT at anytime discharge it to ZERO or you could kill the battery for good.

If you buy FOUR of these "cells" you can make ONE 12V battery.

Balqon Electric Vehicle Manufacturer

Would cost somewhere around $900.00 but you have a 200ah Lithium battery that would have the same usable capacity as a 225-250ah AGM battery, that will last longer, charge faster<--(that is important when your charging is from solar) So that is about 250% more usable ah than the Yeti 1250.

Or for $450 you just get a 12V 90ah battery which has about the same usable ah as the Yeti 1250

Balqon Electric Vehicle Manufacturer

Then get yourself as much Solar Power as you can either afford or need which ever comes first.

This kit from Go Power is pretty good, gives you 160W of Solar Panels plus the same size 1500W pure sine inverter as the Yeti 1250 plus your regulator and I think everything you would need.

GoPower Weekender Kit 160W

So would cost about $400 more but a much better system, better battery that charges faster, and 100W more Solar charging.
As long as you do not need to burn more than 100ah of juice per day this 160W of solar should keep that battery full each day with no downtime, constant power.
Probably weigh a little bit less.


Now if you only need like say 30ah of power per day and for less than 7 days total you can just forget the Solar Panels and buy a big 200ah Lithium battery and don't worry about charging it until you get home.
Could get something like this Lithium storage system at 2.6Kwhr ( I think this works out to something like 215ah) for about $1500.
Probably last you all week.
All in one package and weighs 94#

Balqon Electric Vehicle Manufacturer

 

[Blackfell]

Ty for all the feedback. I will be looking into a few things ppl have posted.

 

[vanion2]

If you buy FOUR of these "cells" you can make ONE 12V battery.

Excellent information but this right here is where I have a problem. You need 4 cells to produce 12V. At the example of the 200Ahr battery you linked that is $880 in batteries alone. An equivalent AGM will run less than $250 or you could get 2 x Trojan T105 (6V Deep cell batteries 225Ahr batteries) for around $210 and easily be set for a weekend.

I love LIon batteries for their recharge and discharge though so I must say that is a great suggestion. The only caveat is if one cell goes bad you are done and they all have a 6 week lead time which means you are done for 2 months and speaking from a road warrior perspective that would suck.

And I just realized you can't just put any charge controller on these batteries for solar because they have very specific charge voltages. You would have to buy one specifically for LIon batteries. Of course that isn't a bad thing since you have to buy a charge controller regardless but it is worth noting.

Other than that I am eventually going to put that 2.6KWhr pack in my motor home one day. Boon docking FTW!

 

[Nunyabiz]

Excellent information but this right here is where I have a problem. You need 4 cells to produce 12V. At the example of the 200Ahr battery you linked that is $880 in batteries alone. An equivalent AGM will run less than $250 or you could get 2 x Trojan T105 (6V Deep cell batteries 225Ahr batteries) for around $210 and easily be set for a weekend.

I love LIon batteries for their recharge and discharge though so I must say that is a great suggestion. The only caveat is if one cell goes bad you are done and they all have a 6 week lead time which means you are done for 2 months and speaking from a road warrior perspective that would suck.

And I just realized you can't just put any charge controller on these batteries for solar because they have very specific charge voltages. You would have to buy one specifically for LIon batteries. Of course that isn't a bad thing since you have to buy a charge controller regardless but it is worth noting.

Other than that I am eventually going to put that 2.6KWhr pack in my motor home one day. Boon docking FTW!

Yep the batteries are more expensive right now, should go down in price in the next few years.
I was thinking about doing 4 of the 1250ah cells to make a nice 1250ah battery and hook that up to about 800+W of Solar Panels.
With the lithium you have solid power across the board, no drop in power like you do with lead acid.
Batteries should last quite a bit longer also.

Should give me about all the power I need for Boondocking.

 

[BrianSD_42]

It's called the Big 3 Upgrade !!!!!

The best battery for your money is the Costco heavy duty replacement battery. It has far more reserve then factory specs and at $80 and 880 CCA @ 30 F it is quite the good buy. The 5 year warranty isn't bad either.

If you really wanted to do solar panels you could mount a 24" by 24" flat to the roof and run the wires along the rear passenger door.

But what is the point?

 

[vanion2]

But what is the point?

Boon docking. Otherwise known as the ability to be off grid camping for extended periods of time.

And those tiny 2' x 2' panels are a waste of money. :toilet3: